How Obama’s enemies set the stage for Trump
US Republicans have created a ’swamp monster’ who could soon be living in the White House, writes
LANDMARK LAWS: The scope and scale of Barack Obama’s legislation far surpasses that of Bill Clinton
IWAS in New York recently, for the 20th anniversary reunion of my law-school class at Columbia University. Apart from the satisfaction of hooking up with old friends, these events are often an edifying intellectual feast.
We spoke about the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts in the aftermath of the death of Antonin Scalia. What did the loss of a reliably conservative vote, with its immense gravitational pull, portend for some of the raging controversies in the US republic: from immigration reform and environmental regulation to campaign finance and gun control?
There was debate about the doctrinal disposition of the court, the advance of gay rights and the retrenchment of black voter rights, which have been under siege from Republican legislatures across the country, hellbent on suppressing black voter turnout after Barack Obama’s two epic victories.
There was lamentation that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the US constitution which, together with the 13th Amendment that proscribed slavery, are the cornerstones of the constitutional edifice upon which African-American political rights are embedded, has proved unavailing with this court in protecting the Voting Rights Act.
The Voting Rights Act, along with the Civil Rights Act and Medicare, are the mainstay of the progressive legislative tidal wave of the early ’60s, a product of the civil rights movement and the rout of the Republicans in the 1964 election. This progressive fecundity and promise would immolate in the swamps of the Mekong Delta as the Democratic coalition imploded over the Vietnam War, resulting in Richard Nixon’s victory in 1968, which presaged a protracted conservative renaissance. The discussion would later reflect on the Donald Trump insurgency and its portent for the Obama era. One of my interlocutors advanced the proposition that the Obama presidency had been weakened by his inability to bargain with the other side. As he put it, Obama could not, or would not, wheel and deal. And this blind spot had denuded his legislative potential.
I demurred, pointing out that while that position may comport with conventional wisdom, it was entirely ahistorical. I argued that it was common cause, that even before Obama took office in January 2009, Republican grandees had secretly gathered to plot a strategy of non-co-operation with the new president, in order to stymie his programme and consign his presidency to failure. This conclave was taking place even as two million Americans were streaming into Washington DC to witness Obama’s inauguration, the rebirth of freedom. It was the proverbial tale of two cities.
This was at odds with US political custom where a new president is given all the deference and co-operation for at least a 100 days, what in US political nomenclature is referred to as the honeymoon period.
The rationale for this honeymoon is that the president is the only political figure in the US constitutional scheme who is elected by the entire country. Thus, the will of the people ought to be given a notional deference, at least for a 100 days, before political combat can resume in earnest.
This custom has over the years been eroding. But it was unheard of for the opposition party to gather before a president is inaugurated and commit to a strategy of non-co-operation and political evisceration. It is tempting to think Obama’s race had something to do to with that.
I further argued, as an illustration of Republican nihilism, that at a time when the US economy was cratering, shedding 800 000 jobs a month with folks losing their homes and livelihoods, that Obama’s stimulus bill, aimed at arresting this implosion, could attract only three Republicans in the 100member Senate. One of the three, Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania, was soon defenestrated from the party for the “cardinal sin” of supporting legislation aimed at averting economic catastrophe.
Remember the grandees had committed to a strategy of non-co-operation. And Specter had violated this catechism and had to be punished.
There is no empirical support for the proposition that those who schmooze end up successful in US politics. If that was the case, Bill Clinton, the master schmoozer and seducer, would have an enviable legislative bounty.
The truth is that Clinton, for all his silky charms, had no landmark legislation of the A LITTLE BIT OF MONICA: Bill Clinton’s lasciviousness and his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky almost cost him his presidency scale and scope of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) which has, since its roll-out 30 months ago, helped insure more than 20 million Americans who previously had no health insurance; the Dodd Frank Act (Wall Street regulation); and the American Recovery Act (stimulus bill) which helped rescue the US economy and, I dare say, the entire global financial system, from near collapse. Clinton’s economic stimulus bill at the nascence of his presidency, something he had campaigned on, was shot down. His healthcare bill, which was shepherded by his wife Hillary, went up in flames and with it a 40-year impregnable Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.
Clinton had to solace himself with signing bills out of the Republican playbook, like the Welfare Act, which led to resignations by some progressives from his administration, and the Crime Bill, which led to mass incarceration of black people, something for which he recently apologised.
But notwithstanding his embrace of policies that have a long pedigree in Republican orthodoxy, the Republicans harassed and harried him with all manner of investigations, finally ensnaring him in the tawdry Monica Lewinsky saga, which led to his impeachment by the House and his subsequent acquittal in the Senate.
What is very clear is that Republicans are only interested in eviscerating the other side, not bargaining with them. They have a quasi-Leninist conception of power. They seek to delegitimise by any means whoever defeats them electorally. This is classic democratic nullification.
Clinton was sandbagged with investigations for the eight years that he was president. And because of his lasciviousness, they almost succeeded in driving him out of office over the Lewinsky affair. Obama’s citizenship was questioned by the “birther” movement in a naked attempt to render him an illegitimate usurper.
There were attempts to force an unprecedented default on US debt obligations by a Tea Party brigade not shy about its antipathy towards Obama. “Take back our country,” was its rallying cry. And this dallying with default occurred after Obama had tried the politics of schmooze with the Speaker of the House John Boehner, exploring a “grand bargain” on entitlement programmes and taxes which was resoundingly rejected by the Republican caucus.
The flirtation with economic cataclysm showed that hatred for Obama trumped love of country in the Republican Party.
Out of the Obama Derangement Syndrome which the Republicans have inhabited for the last seven years, has emerged an untrammelled troglodyte who is now haunting the US political landscape.
Will America have its own Brexit-like crack-up in November and elect President Trump? With Trump at the helm, the routine destruction of the “black body” by police violence will be given a fillip, plunging America into a cauldron of racial conflagration. This is how nations commit suicide.
Mabandla is a businessman
What is very clear is that Republicans are only interested in eviscerating the other side, not bargaining with them
SWAMPED: Republican candidate Donald Trump